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Atoms for Peace Vow Their Jazzy Methods Will Not ‘Confuse’ You

atoms for peace amok jazz confuse nigel godrich thom yorke

Last month Thom Yorke assured the public that his other band’s debut LP will indeed contain actual songs, and now Nigel Godrich wants you to know that Atoms for Peace are “not trying to confuse anyone.” Either these fellas are quite concerned about being misunderstood, or the folks over at Rolling Stone, who ran both interviews, are giving them reason to be defensive. Regardless, we’re thankful for more info about Amok, the new album due out February 26 via XL Recordings.

In the same chat about not confusing fans about his electronic rock band, Godrich explained Atoms for Peace’s process by referencing jazz. Specifically, he said they took a few cues from Miles Davis’ classic but confounding Bitches Brew: “It’s that thing of creating interaction between people and then editing that whole thing to create dynamics, you know? … We were thinking about things in very much a jazz way in terms of using edits and big blocks of music to create arrangements.”

Godrich said he and the band jammed for three days in the studio before editing the results into songs, such as the blippy first single “Default” and its punishing B-side “What the Eyeballs Did.” He added: “It’s supposed to blur the line between what’s generated electronically and what’s generated by a human being. I think it’s true to say there are things on the record that sound like machines that are actually people, and there are things that sound like real sounds that are actually machines.”

So, like androids. “The real thing is just to get the combination that works,” he said. “It’s not a lot of effort — we’re not trying to confuse anyone.” Slightly paranoid ones.